[Buddha-l] A question for Jewish Buddhists

[Piya Tan]

{Memo: always send using "Plain Text."]

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 7:36 AM, Piya Tan <dharmafarer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Lance & Dan,
>
> I find your discussions professional, stimulating and useful (not that they
> should be
> otherwise).
>
> With some guidance from Ven Sujato (a forest monk residing in Australia), I
> have
> learn much about the usefulness of making comparative studies between the
> Pali
> Nikaya sutta cognates in the Chinese (Sanskrit) Agamas. Ven Analayo has also
> done a close comparative study of the Majjhima Nikaya and their Chinese
> Nikaya
> versions (pending publication).
>
> One really good example is a study of the Brahma,vihaara Sutta (A
> 10.208/5:299)
> and MA (Madhyamaagama) 15 (T1.437b-438b). I have appended my teaching notes
> here if anyone wishes to see it:
>
> http://dharmafarer.googlepages.com/2.10BrahmaviharaSa10.208piya.pdf
>
> With metta,
>
> Piya Tan
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 5:12 AM, L.S. Cousins <selwyn at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dan Lusthaus wrote:
>> > Lance,
>> >
>> > As for
>> >
>> >
>> >> The only alternative I can see is to suppose that by some time around
>> >> the middle of the first millennium A.D. (or earlier) a Sanskrit
>> >> canonical recension of the four Āgamas had been produced which was
>> >> largely shared by the major schools of northern India.
>> >>
>> >
>> > "Largely" is a vague term.
>>
>> And meant to be.
>>
>> >  I suspect that -- Mahayana aside -- all the
>> > schools "largely" shared similar tripitakas, especially the Nikaya/Agama
>> > portion.
>>
>> I have carefully avoided talking about Canons or Tripiṭakas or even
>> Vinaya.
>>
>> > In the Katthavatthu there are very few proof texts cited by the
>> > variety of opponents that the Theravadins reject as authentic.
>>
>> It may be that collections of the four Āgamas differed mainly in their
>> arrangement, not in their content.
>>
>> > As a study of
>> > the pudgalavada texts (the few we have in Chinese) also demonstrates,
>> > their
>> > proof texts are all things also found in the Pali. Without complete sets
>> > of
>> > all the different tripitakas, it would be hard to be anything more than
>> > tentative about the extent of variants or outright diversions, much less
>> > pin
>> > down all the sectarian digressions. We know, for instance, that the
>> > Sammitiyas had a nine-work vinaya that differed from all the other
>> > schools,
>> > but we don't know with any great specificity at all what those nine
>> > works
>> > were, or in what ways they differed from other vinayas. We have a few
>> > clues
>> > in Paramartha's writings and in a handful of mentions of Sammitiya
>> > practices
>> > mentioned by Yijing (I-Ching) in his travelog, but we don't know how
>> > rooted
>> > those alternatives were in the actual text of the Sammitiya vinaya.
>> >
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>> > Nor, for that matter, do we know how faithfully the translators rendered
>> > whatever tripitaka texts they had at hand from Indic into Chinese (quite
>> > a
>> > few were probably closer in language to the Gandhari prakrit than to
>> > correct
>> > Sanskrit, detectable in things such transcriptions of names, and certain
>> > odd
>> > syntactic features). The evidence presently suggests that many liberties
>> > of
>> > various sorts were taken when producing these translations, or at least
>> > with
>> > many of them. These texts have not yet been examined very carefully
>> > (interest in them is on the rise, so hopefully someday soon, but not
>> > yet),
>> > so drawing firm conclusions at this stage would be premature and not
>> > prudent. There are what have become the standard doxographical
>> > classifications (which get repeated uncritically in all the modern
>> > literature), inherited from catalogues prepared in China many centuries
>> > after the translations themselves, but when such claims are examined
>> > carefully, much turns out to be bogus, and will need to be reexamined
>> > and
>> > corrected.
>> >
>> > Dan
>> >
>> All of this is true, but doesn't affect what I had to say about the
>> Dīrghāgama and Madhyamāgama collections.
>>
>> Lance
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>
>
>
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>



-- 
The Minding Centre
Blk 644 Bukit Batok Central #01-68 (2nd flr)
Singapore 650644
Tel: 8211 0879
Meditation courses & therapy: http://themindingcentre.googlepages.com
Website: dharmafarer.googlepages.com